OpenCandy FAQ & How to avoid 3rd party recommendation(s)

[Terramex]

All DAEMON Tools products' trial versions include the OpenCandy ad-sponsor module,
which displays various third-party recommendations during the setup process.

The partnership with OpenCandy is helping Disc-Soft Ltd. to get the funding required to keep up the development, and also to maintain the free version of DAEMON Tools lite.


How does the ad-sponsor module work

• No ads outside the installer

Advertisement is shown during the software installation only.
The user will not receive any more advertisement from the bundled ad-sponsor module once the installation is completed.

• Recommended software can always be declined; installers failing to work that way are not authorized to go into partnership with the OpenCandy advertising network

Recommended software is not needed to install or run DAEMON Tools products, and can always be declined.
No unwanted software is installed: user can always accept or decline the recommendation, the user is in full control of what is installed, and in no way the user's selection can be overridden or hampered by the installer.

• Ad-sponsor module can be completely skipped

1. The end user can disconnect the internet connection to avoid any 3rd party recommendation.
2. All installers can be launched with the /NOCANDY command line parameter to disable the ad-sponsor module.
3. Another option is running a silent installation: Installation command line parameters | daemon-help.com
   The installer will complete without requiring user intervention and will not load, display nor install any third party offer.
4. The latest option is using the "paid" installer package from the customer account section at Disc-Soft.com, which doesn't contain any bundle at all.

• Recommended software can be removed at any time: it is a prerequisite for advertisers for being eligible to be featured in OpenCandy network

Recommended software are separate products from third party and have their own separate uninstallers.
Please refer to the third party programs' documentation for removing or modifying third party software, usually uninstallers are available from Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs,
or in Start > All Programs (in each program's folder), or reachable from the web browser for toolbars and browser add-ons.
In no way the user is hampered when uninstalling or otherwise modifying the installed software.

• Advertisers are double-checked, by OpenCandy network and by the Disc-Soft QA team.

OpenCandy platform allows partner developers to select advertisers eligible to display ads in their own installers.
Disc-Soft is endeavored to block advertisers which fail to meet personal requirements of reputation and usefulness.

Any feedback is welcome to improve the quality of the recommendations !

Developers participating in the OpenCandy network must comply well defined quality guidelines, see OpenCandy Software Network Policies, for more information see OpenCandy FAQ and OpenCandy Privacy Policy. Before release, all packages, including partnership installers, are thoroughly scanned with multiple antimalware tools to ensure they are clean of any malware or malware-like features.


Reporting problems

Please report any problem and suggestion to Disc-Soft and to OpenCandy - either with OpenCandy ad-sponsor module or about advertisers.
When reporting issues please try to be as informative and detailed as possible, i.e. specify details of operating system and browser (language, 32 or 64 bit, version, service pack level, etc), and the complete way to replicate a problem you've experienced.
OpenCandy needs this information in order to keep providing a good service, fix bugs and be informed about developers' and advertisers' behavior with end users.

We can filter recommendations to be displayed in the installer, so please inform us about low quality or low reputation advertisers so they can be avoided to be shown at all.
To offer interesting, useful and safe software to end users it's important to us -as it is important for end users- to use only quality recommendations.
Only the constant feedback of a community can make this network improve in the long run, exactly as community feedback is fundamental for running a good software project.

We would like to be notified when end users experience problems regarding those critical areas:

• The Ad-sponsor installer module must give complete and correct information about the recommended software
• The Ad-sponsor installer module must never override user's choice to accept or decline the recommendation
• The Ad-sponsor installer module and third party recommended software must not use any technique that is considered harmful by anti-malware programs: in this case, unless it is a false positive or the claim is dismissed by wider consensus of most reliable anti-malware software, the problem must be fixed as soon as possible
• Third party recommended software should give complete and correct information about how to uninstall it cleanly, and provide a standard uninstaller

Experience has shown that some OpenCandy partners don't always keep the Network Policy conditions.
In case you got one of those few exceptions which -at worst- aren't easily/completely uninstalled through the Windows Add or Remove Programs and/or browser Add-on list, here are two recommended, free apps to remove those programs/Add-ons; feel free to use both of them:

• AdwCleaner

• Junkware Removal Tool

Credit goes to Giorgio Tani, thanks for the reference

[Sway]

Dear Customers!

Please pay attention that you are able to download offers free builds at My licenses page at Disc-Soft.com. You should log in to your customer account to do that.

As of today, offers free builds are available for the latest versions on the following products:

• DAEMON Tools Ultra
• DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced
• DAEMON Tools Pro Standard
• DAEMON Tools Lite
• DAEMON Tools USB

What does the offers free build mean? It means that your installation file DOES NOT contain a program code of either OpenCandy or any other ad-sponsor module. You will not get any offers during installation process as well as you will not get false positive responses of you antivirus related to embedded ad-sponsor code.

Moreover, now it is possible to buy DAEMON Tools Lite for personal use for 2.90 Euro only.

With paid personal version of DAEMON Tools Lite you will get the following advantages:

• It does not show any offers while you're installing or updating the software
• It goes with free Lifetime upgrades, so you can install all upcoming major versions free of charge
• It offers full technical support, so you are welcome to contact DAEMON Tools Support Team 24/7

So you pay once and get lifetime license with free Lifetime upgrades and full technical support, that is free of any third party offers.

We do our best to provide our users with available options that suit best.

[Eri-k]

just in case you got something like opencandy - use malwarebytes or remove it by hand: [url=http://soft2secure.com/knowledgebase/opencandy]Remove PUP.Optional.OpenCandy malware. OpenCandy virus removal for Chrome, Firefox and IE

[MrGreggle]

Hey guys, I followed all of the above instructions and still ended up with malware installed (and yes, adware is a subset of malware and so it IS malware). I decided to be productive instead of whining and throw together a new tutorial on how to avoid it.

1. Go to WinCDEmu - the easiest way to mount an ISO. And more...
2. Click Download
3. Run the downloaded executable.